(2019-10-02, 10:13 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]I guess it's not clear to me what you're suggesting - surely there will be some aspects of the brain necessary for instantiation of a conscious human in the world?
Beyond that nothing in the article suggests they are unaware of the Hard Problem?
Their overall conclusion in the Abstract: "More generally, the present perspective suggests that L5p neurons have a central role in the mechanisms underlying consciousness."
So like most neuroscientists they view consciousness as the workings of some sort of neurological mechanisms.
Neither this theory or any other mechanistic neurological theory can evade Chalmers' famous Hard Problem of consciousness. The properties of conscious awareness are in an entirely different existential realm than the properties of matter, energy and space. Some examples with conscious awareness:
- qualities of subjective awareness - qualia, i.e. blueness, redness, loudness, softness
- subjectivity: what it is like to be a person, a conscious agent
- intentionality - the quality of directing toward achieving an object
- aboutness: being about something
- this object of aboutness may be totally immaterial as in abstract thought, i.e. a thought about the number pi
What are the properties of all proposed theoretical biological/neurological mechanisms for consciousness? These are the ultimately physically measurable physics parameters involved in neuronal interactions through synaptic junctions or "quantum entanglement" or whatever. Measured classical parameters include forces, field strengths, masses, charges, velocities, etc. All of this amounts to "things" of some sort, not thoughts.
The properties of mental phenomena such as the examples given can't be derived from the properties of the ultimately physical phenomena utilized by Hameroff's theories. They are in entirely different existential categories.
So this seems to leave consciousness as some sort of epiphenomenal illusion, where what it is that is experiencing this illusion is undefined. But consciousness can't be a powerless epiphenomenon because consciousness has causative power in the world. To use the word "emergence" is just to evoke another mysterious miracle. The core mystery remains.
Aside from all this related to the Hard Problem, a large body of paranormal empirical evidence has been accumulated that clearly indicates that human consciousness is ultimately independent of the physical brain. This is especially in the area of veridical NDEs including many cases of very clear consciousness NDEs occurring while the physical brain is not functioning or only to a small degree, as in cardiac arrest. Other areas are the several thousand investigated and verified reincarnation cases including a number involving correlated birthmarks/birth defects, and investigated and verified mediumistic communications.
Certainly a physical brain is necessary for consciousness to manifest in the physical world. The best metaphor or simile would be the TV set analogy. The TV set interfaces between the immaterial electromagnetic waves carrying the picture information, and the physical display. The TV is essential for the manifestation of the TV show in the physical world, and disruption of its various component parts will distort or destroy that displayed picture, but the TV set does not actually generate the displayed program. Any more than the brain generates consciousness.